If Things Had Gone Just A Little Differently
by DARKSOMEONE41
Summary: Mac and Bozer may have gone their separate ways, but they'll never forget what they had.


**Title: **_If Things Had Gone Just A Little Differently…_

**Genre: **_Friendship/Angst_

**Rating:**_ T_

**Characters: **_Wilt Bozer, Angus MacGyver_

**Summary: **_Mac and Bozer may have gone their separate ways, but they'll never forget what they had._

**Pairings: **_None_

**Warnings: **_Depression, Fear of Abandonment, Regret, Some Suicidal Thoughts/Ideas, Some Swearing_

**Word Count: **_3,935 words; 11 pages on Google Docs_

**Author's Note: **_I might put a sequel to this. I don't know. I don't have much to say about this one. __Comfort__ has a sequel in the works. Um, please enjoy. And I'm sorry in advance._

* * *

"_Don't cry because it's over._

_Smile because it happened."_

~ Dr. Seuss

* * *

At first, Mac had thought Bozer was joking. He sure as hell said it often enough when the mood was light. "Keep it up, and I'm moving out." It was almost always said with a smile and a laugh following after, though.

Mac didn't smile or laugh when he saw the packed bags that night.

"_Wh-...? Bozer?" He asked, stunned, disbelieving, and...betrayed._

_Bozer couldn't make eye contact with him. "I'm sorry. I have to."_

'_What did I do,?" Because it had to have been his fault. He must have done something wrong, right?_

_Bozer gave a sad smile. "Not everything is your fault, Mac. Maybe sometimes it's mine."_

"_What does that even mean? Can we fix this?"_

_A small, one-shoulder shrug followed. "I don't know. I'll have to fix myself first." After that, there had been a moment of silence..._

And then he was gone.

Mac hadn't touched his old friend's room since that day. Jack had offered to fill in the empty space, but Mac adamantly refused. Maybe...Maybe one day Bozer will…. Just not yet.

That had been almost five months ago. Those five months had been very unkind to Mac. How did the saying go? _"You don't know what you have until it's gone._" Well, now he knew. Lesson learned. Can Bozer come back now?

It didn't seem like it. Phone calls went unreturned. Bozer never returned to the Foundation. Questions to Matty remained unanswered. Everything seemed so bleak. He remembered Riley and Jack getting pissed at the news.

"_How could he just leave like that?" Riley scoffed._

"_Are you kidding me? I should go slap some sense into that idiot!" Jack yelled, looking like he just might punch a wall or two._

_Matty stayed silent and watched the scene with undecipherable eyes._

_Mac shook his head. "We don't know the whole story," he pointed out softly. Why was he making excuses for Bozer? He should be angry, right? So why was he feeling guilty, worried even?_

_Riley rolled her eyes. "What else to the story could there possibly be?"_

"_Mac, he left you! With no explanation!"_

_Mac resisted a flinch. '"He said he had to fix himself first."_

"_And what the hell does that mean?"_

_Mac stared down at his shoes for a moment before gazing forlornly out the window. Pushing back the lump of emotion gathered in his throat, he whispered, "I really wish I knew."_

"He left you." Everyone knew he had some...issues with abandonment. _Bozer_ knew that. Still, despite the fact that his best friend had left, it was hard to associate Bozer with one of his biggest fears. Bozer had always been a solid figure in his life. Mac thought he would have been permanent. If Bozer wouldn't stay, who would?

Mac wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

The point was there was no one to come home to anymore. So who exactly did he have to stay for? Jack? Riley? Matty? Maybe. There were too many "maybe's" in his life nowadays. He could do with at least one "for sure."

Bozer was, _for sure_, never coming back.

Missions got a little careless. One too many mistakes on each one. Several concerned reprimands from Jack. Too many tearful hugs from Riley. Scoldings from Matty every day. The world seemed to keep spinning without Bozer, and Mac couldn't say he liked it. He would have never said he was one for emotion. Before Bozer had left, he couldn't remember the last time he had cried.

Crying happened every night now.

The house seemed so cold. The stale air suffocated him. Everything was so _quiet_. He remembered a time where the fireplace on the back porch always burned bright. The aroma from Bozer's cooking would fill every room, and Bozer would be waiting for him, a smile on his face and excited to hear about his friend's day, also willing to share his own stories.

That didn't happen anymore.

Mac hadn't invited anyone over since That Night. He was too embarrassed to say he had to order takeout. He never had to learn how to cook when Bozer was around, especially since his friend had banned him from the kitchen after he set the oven on fire that one time. He didn't know how to tell them he hadn't cleaned, that he didn't have the energy to. He used to do that with Bozer, music playing in the background. He never sang, but Bozer had no qualms about it, no matter how badly he sounded. More than once, Mac vowed he would never complain about his friend's voice if it just meant he could have him back.

The house stayed lonely.

Who did he have now? _What_ did he have now? Mac contemplated moving out, but he couldn't leave. The reasons he wanted to leave were the same reasons he needed to stay. Mac swore he saw ghosts of past memories. Sometimes, it would be the two of them chatting in the kitchen while dinner brewed in the oven. Other days, it would be the moments in the living room, Bozer watching TV while Mac constructed something new out of scrap spread around the house. He couldn't leave. For as much as it hurt, he couldn't bear to let go of Bozer just yet.

Just because Bozer had left, it didn't mean everything that he was or did left, too.

Bozer was still the knight in shining armor that saved him from the bullies when they were young. He was still the same ball of energy and joy Mac looked forward to at the end of a rough day. He was still Mac's best friend of so many years. It didn't matter where Boze was. It didn't erase him as a person. A Bozer-shaped hole carved itself into Mac's heart, and nothing seemed to fit in it.

Mac snagged his coat before heading out the door. He needed a coffee, needed to clear his thoughts. He wondered, did Bozer miss him as much as he missed Bozer? Did Bozer still think about the times they shared, the good and the bad? Did he care about what Mac felt at this very moment? Did he regret the choice he made? Did Mac ever leave an imprint on his life, like how Bozer did on his?

Thoughts like that would get him killed on the field. But this was a battle waging on at home, a place where he was supposed to feel safe, warm, and loved...And it just might kill him here, too.

* * *

Leaving had been the hardest thing Bozer had ever done. It still was the hardest thing. Battling this disease on his own wasn't easy, but so many people said he had to take care of himself first if he wanted to win. It wasn't that Mac was a burden - Bozer loved him like a _brother_ \- but people told him he couldn't worry about other things while he worried about himself. Bozer couldn't fight that. If he wasn't loving Mac, he was worrying about him, and he had enough stress on his plate as it was.

"_There is often a difference between selfishness and self-care. Sometimes, there isn't a difference at all," Doctor Redding reminded._

"_So I should leave him?"_

"_That's not my choice to make."_

"_It'll hurt him."_

"_Will it hurt you?"_

"_Yes!" Bozer cried. He palmed his eyes in frustration._

_Doctor Redding pursed his lips. "But?" he pried softly._

_Bozer let out a shuddering breath, glaring down at his clenched hands as he whispered, "But it'll hurt me if I stayed."_

"_So what are you going to do?"_

_Bozer sighed. "I don't know, Doc." He was lying._

_He just didn't want to face it._

The pencil snapped in his fist. Blood slowly began to seep out of the wound the sharp wood had cut into his skin. He didn't care.

He glared at the offending page. Sure, the therapy journals helped with venting, but it didn't help the emotions inside. For as much as Doctor Redding encouraged releasing the buildup in his chest, he never mentioned how much it hurt.

And it hurt so, _so_ much.

Everyday he wished he could be back home with Mac. This apartment was not home. It never would be. He had no memories here. No smiles or laughs. He barely had furniture, didn't have a TV. He didn't even cook anymore. And, yet, he didn't care about any of that. He thought leaving Mac's house would help him, so why did it feel like a dagger in his throat?

He wrote, and wrote, and wrote in his journal, but he never said the words he needed to say, never said the words that mattered. At this point, Bozer had gained enough experience in writing that he was sure he could speak better in graphite and ink than he could with his voice. The one thing he needed to say, he didn't think he could say out loud. Maybe he should write it down. Maybe he should cover it up with metaphors and similes. Paint a picture with adjectives and anecdotes. Write in in subliminally. Look for the deeper meaning.

He shook his head at himself. No. If he was going to say it, he had to _say_ it. He couldn't hide anymore; he was so tired of it.

In the corner of his current therapy entry, with half of his broken pencil, he scribbled the words, _"I'm sorry."_

He waited for a moment with bated breath, as if hoping it would be like in the movies where some kind of magic would reverse time to the very point he made his mistake, let him do it all over again and change the past five months. He stilled, anticipating the door opening, Mac somehow finding him - if he even bothered to look for him - and smiling, saying, _"I forgive you."_

The apartment was so cold.

Bozer let out a choked breath that eventually dissolved into heartbroken sobs. Tears dripped onto the page, darkening the spots they landed on and smearing the blue and red lines on the notebook page. His cries echoed in the room, the only noise that ever really sounded lately. There was no hum of the refrigerator. That had broken months ago. Mac could have fixed it. The stove couldn't turn on, nor the oven. Mac could've fixed those, too.

Mac wasn't here anymore. He never _was_ _here_. It was Bozer who had left. It was Bozer who wished he hadn't.

His phone had died months ago. He never bothered to use his charger. The apartment didn't have electricity, and Bozer didn't have anyone to call him anyways. He was so, so alone.

_You did this to yourself._

Yeah, he knew that. Not a minute in the day went by that he didn't think about it. The image of Mac's heartbroken face, unshed tears, and shaking hands burned itself into his mind. He hated himself for it. He should have never been the one to do that to Mac, but he did, and even if Mac somehow did end up forgiving him, he could never forgive himself. Nothing would ever be the same.

Nothing would be like Before.

Bozer took a shuddering deep breath, setting down one snapped half of the pencil next to the other and shutting the notebook. That was enough for today. He didn't think he had the energy to keep going, didn't know if he wanted to. He shot a glance at the surprisingly functioning alarm clock next to his bed - _his mattress_ \- taking note of the time through vision blurred by unwiped tears. He sighed, scrubbing away any evidence of his regret, and stood.

He was glad that the water worked at least. It was the one bill he allowed himself to pay. Gas? Electricity? Nope. Just water and rent. Really, it was all he could afford on the minimum wage salary he earned working at the local bookstore. If he got dressed fast enough, he _might_ be able to make it to his appointment with Doctor Redding on time. After that, he could grab a coffee from the Starbucks down the street before he was due to report to work at the local bookstore. Doctor Redding had told him it would be wise to get a job that was less demanding than his job at the "think tank." Bozer had wanted a job change, anyway. Working at the Foundation would mean working with Mac, and that would be on another level of uncomfortable.

Bozer swallowed thickly as he headed for the bathroom. He remembered the conversation he had with Doctor Redding during their first session since he left.

"_So you really did leave?"_

_Bozer nodded slowly. "Yeah," he replied quietly. "I left."_

"_And what is your plan now?"_

"_I got a small apartment not too far from here. It's within walking distance. I also got a job at a bookstore. You said something less demanding. It's pretty quiet there."_

_Doctor Redding raised an eyebrow. "Have you talked to Mac since you left?"_

_Bozer's gaze shifted down to the floor. "I...No. I haven't. I let my phone die. I haven't charged it this whole week."_

"_And when are you going to turn it back on?"_

_Bozer bit the inside of his cheek. "I don't know."_

"_Why is that?"_

"_I don't think I could stand what I'll see, or what I won't."_

_Doctor Redding hummed. "You're scared of the guilt you feel if you see missed calls from Mac, or you'll feel regret and loneliness if you see he hasn't called you at all."_

"_I miss him, Doc," Bozer choked out, voice cracking._

_Doctor Redding gave him a sympathetic smile. "We make a lot of choices in our lives, Bozer. We won't be happy with every single one."_

"_When will this guilt go away?"_

"_That is up for you to decide. But I think you should probably start with talking to him. He was your best friend. Those years together don't just erase."_

Bozer stared at himself in the mirror and resisted the urge to smash it to pieces. He hated the sight of himself nowadays. What had he _done?_ Did Mac still think about him? Did he still want Bozer to come back? Did he think about him? Was he angry? Over him? Did he still care about him? Whatever the case, Bozer didn't deserve to know. He made his bed; it was time he lay in it, even if it was made of nails.

Bozer shook those thoughts out of his head. If he kept thinking like that, who knew what other thoughts may come into his head? So far, the medication he took worked to prevent things like that from popping in, but the occasional one slipped through. All it took was that one, and it just may kill him.

...Not that he didn't deserve that, either.

* * *

Mac thanked the barista, taking the cup of freshly brewed coffee and change, but his voice lacked its normal enthusiasm. Any semblance of happiness left with Bozer as he walked out the front door. He stepped off to the side and turned to leave, only for his blood to run cold at the sight in front of him.

Bozer.

The man was sitting at a table in the far corner of the shop, staring absentmindedly at the coffee cup in front of him, seemingly distant. Even from his spot in the middle of the Starbucks, Mac could see tired bags under his eyes and...had he lost weight?

Mac knew he should walk away, should leave the store before Bozer saw him and forget this ever happened, but his feet remained rooted on the ground. Months of sadness and loneliness and tears fueled him. He wanted answers, wanted an explanation.

He wanted his best friend back.

He must have taken too long to decide because Bozer suddenly looked up, as if he had sensed someone staring at him. His eyes widened comically when they landed on Mac, but the blond couldn't bring himself to laugh. Instead, he merely stared back, unsure if he should approach him or if he should leave. Time seemed frozen for a moment, despite the people bustling around them.

Finally, he saw Bozer mouth, "Mac?" in what seemed like total disbelief, blinking as if he wasn't sure if what he was looking at was real.

Mac softened, and he tried to push back the lump of emotion that had settled in his throat. "Hey…" he mouthed back.

Bozer's eyes seemed to get a bit glassy as he swallowed thickly, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to be composing himself, trying to decide if he should get up or stay where he was, just like Mac. When had their friendship turned to such hesitancy and fear? They were never like this before. Could they _ever_ be like Before?

With a deep breath, Mac ultimately decided to make the first move and started to approach Bozer's table. For a moment, Bozer looked shocked, surprised by Mac's willingness to actually come talk to him, but it was quickly replaced by a forced look of calm. Mac knew that look was fragile. He himself had made that face before, and it had always been Bozer who had broken it to get Mac to release all the pent-up emotion inside. Maybe this time…

Mac arrived at the little table for two, sitting in the empty chair across from his best friend.

He would never dare to say ex-best friend.

For a while, the two of them were silent, drinking their coffee and staring out the window. Mac expected it to feel uncomfortable, suffocating, but it felt like how it did all those months ago: _normal_. Except there was nothing normal about any of this.

It was Mac who broke the silence first, the need to understand more overwhelming than the need to maintain pride he was too tired to handle anymore.

"Why did you leave?"

Bozer physically flinched at the monotone voice. He swallowed thickly again and nodded slowly, attempting to collect himself. After about a minute, Bozer finally answered, "I thought I had to."

Mac's gaze whipped from the window to the man across from him. "What the hell does that mean?"

Bozer closed his eyes, taking quiet deep breaths. "I...had issues to deal with. I did what I thought I had to...I…" Bozer drew in a shaky breath and opened his eyes to show unshed tears. He immediately turned his head so Mac couldn't see them. "I thought I had to."

Mac wasn't sure how to deal with that information. It wasn't the answer he was expecting, and it certainly didn't satisfy him. "What issues were so bad that you couldn't stay and tell me? That we couldn't work through them together?"

Bozer shook his head. "They're not excuses for what I did."

"I didn't ask for an excuse. I asked for an answer."

Bozer recoiled, drawing into himself like he had been slapped. Based on the way he looked right now, Mac assumed it probably would have hurt less.

"Depression."

The world grinded to a halt. Mac's mouth dried up, and his hand tightened its grip on his coffee cup. How long had Bozer felt that way? How did he not notice? How did all these years go by, and he didn't realize something could potentially be wrong with his best friend?

"How long?" Mac whispered.

Bozer bit the inside of his lip, gaze shifting from the window to the coffee cup.

"Look at me when you answer," Mac demanded. Bozer's eyes slowly lifted to meet Mac's, and the blond wasn't surprised to see the redness in them. "How long?"

"I was diagnosed about seven months before...before that night." The reply came softly, quiet enough that Mac had to strain to hear it. Once he did, he wished he never asked.

"Seven months," Mac repeated, mulling it over in his head. The more he thought about it, the more angry and hurt he felt. "Seven months, you knew. More than that, you felt this way. And you never told me."

Bozer shook his head in resignation. "It was never your problem."

"You were my best friend, Boze!" Mac snapped, drawing the attention of some patrons to them. Bozer flinched at the suddenly raised volume, but he didn't fight back. Instead, he slumped his shoulders and seemingly braced himself for whatever onslaught Mac was preparing to unleash.

With a deep breath, Mac lowered his voice and said, "You were my _best friend_. Your problems were _mine_, too, just like how you made my issues yours. The street works both ways. And you didn't tell me. You didn't _trust_ me."

"I did trust you," Bozer croaked out. "I trust you with my _life_, Mac, but I thought I had to leave to fix me. I thought that leaving would give me a chance to figure out why I was feeling this way because I _shouldn't_ be feeling this way. My life was _perfect_. I had everything I ever wanted, so it made no sense why I wanted to-" He suddenly cut himself off, pursing his lips and shaking his head.

Mac wasn't going to let him get away that easy. "Say it. It made no sense why you wanted to _what?"_

Bozer tried to stop the choked sob that escaped him, but it slipped through, anyway. "Why I wanted to die."

Mac could feel his own eyes burn, and he forced himself to look away. At first, he thought he was the victim, that he had been betrayed. Now? Now he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if he was the victim, or if it was the broken man in front of him. Either way, Mac couldn't get past the hurt he felt deep inside. All those months of being alone, all of it caused because Bozer didn't tell him about his own psychological battle, because Mac was too blind to see his friend was hurting.

"I never meant to hurt you, Mac," Bozer whispered, wiping away the tear that had somehow managed to fall down his cheek. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Mac wanted to say he forgave him, that he was sorry, too, but some selfish part of him wouldn't allow it. Bozer had made his choice, and that part of him wanted Bozer to suffer the consequences of it, wanted the man to feel as alone as he did for the past five months.

_Be a man and apologize_, he told himself. _Don't make this worse for yourself. You know what you really want and you know what he wants. Stop running around the problem and just end it. It's three simple words, MacGyver: I'm sorry, too._ _Just say it._

And he did.

"I'm sorry, too."

Bozer visibly flinched once more at the fiercely cold and apathetic tone. His sorrowful eyes met the angry ones. Mac grabbed his coffee cup and rose from his seat, not giving Bozer another look as he stormed out of the Starbucks. Once he left and climbed inside his car, he felt the regret wash over him like a tidal wave.

_What did he just do?!_

Bozer stared at the empty seat Mac had occupied not even a minute ago. Guilt threatened to swallow him whole, pulled him into a pool of remorse. He made this choice. He had to suffer the consequences that came from it. He buried his head into his hands, pushing back the tears building up behind his eyelids.

_What had he done…?_

* * *

_Nobody wants to walk the road alone_

_Ten thousand miles from home_

_And I don't wanna disappear_

_Where do we go from here?_

_Nobody wants to play a useless part_

_In matters of the heart_

_I'm standing here so far away_

_I'll meet you at the end someday_

~ _Meet You at the End_ by Aviators

* * *

**A/N: **_I hadn't intended on this story turning out like this. It was supposed to be more mutual and light-hearted, but somewhere along the way, it turned into __this__. I've never written a story with an ending like this before. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm all for my unrealistic, happy endings. For that reason, I __might__ write a sequel to this. But I'm not sure._

_I hoped you guys enjoyed this. _


End file.
